2/14/2024 0 Comments Snapchat plus plus app![]() In many areas it is also impossible to attract GPs to replace retiring colleagues. Now, it is impossible for GPs to fulfil demand. Before, though very busy, we were able to allocate enough advance and on-the-day appointments to meet need. In the early years of my 30-year GP career, there were fewer than 1,800 patients per fully qualified GP – now there are 2,300. The difficulty that GPs face in providing sufficient appointments is as unwelcome to them as to patients and is due to the ageing population and the rise in patients per fully qualified GP. SIR – The Government’s plans to provide digital telephone systems and allow pharmacists to treat some medical conditions (report, May 10) are welcome but will not greatly improve access to GPs. Those of my generation learnt in our clinical years by being part of a consultant-led “firm” which provided consistent teaching to its students and consistent treatment to its patients. Once, and only once, they have that background is it time for an apprenticeship form of learning. A doctor, as a diagnostician, needs a scientific, academic education so as to enable him or her to consider whether what appears to be condition A might in fact be condition B, C or D. For doctors, however, the situation is different. ![]() The sooner we get back to practical training for a practical job, the better. SIR – Nursing apprenticeships are not “a radical new approach” but a return to the system under which my wife and thousands like her trained as State Registered Nurses until some half-witted politician decided that nurses had to have a degree. However, I predict that the NHS will be sure to set up another layer of executives, managers and administrative staff to run the scheme, probably employing significantly more than the 200 apprentices it is being designed to produce. This is a good – if small – step in the right direction. SIR – As part of the delayed NHS workforce strategy, Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, is to introduce a medical apprenticeship scheme ( report, May 10) to fast-track school leavers into nursing and doctor positions, offering 200 places over the next two years. ![]()
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